The present invention relates to an automatic dialer, and more particularly to a dialer for a communications terminal which is accessible to a public telecommunication network via a direct route or via a local network such as private branch exchanges. The present invention is particularly advantageous for portable communications terminals whose mode of connection is frequently switched between the public network and the local network.
With conventional automatic dialers of communications terminals connected to a private branch exchange (PBX), a network access digit and a pause are registered in a memory before a telephone number of the network is registered to allow establishment of a dial-tone connection to the network during call setup mode, while extension telephone numbers of the PBX are registered with no additional information. If the mode of terminal connection is switched from the PBX to the public network, all the registered information become useless for automatic dialing. Thus, the contents of the memory must be altered with an effort which is time consuming and annoying. This is problematic if the dialer is attached to a portable communications terminal whose mode of connection is frequently switched between the public network and PBX.